Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir Review

The Emperor needs necromancers.
 

The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.
 

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.
 

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.
 

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.
 

Of course, some things are better left dead.

Necromancers, cavaliers, copious amounts of magic and challenges, oh my! Tamsyn Muir’s debut novel and the start of her Locked Tomb series, on paper Gideon has everything going for it. While featuring many hallmark elements of fantasy epics such as an emperor with numerical houses/factions, pseudo magician + knight pairings, and an unknown challenge for representatives to ascend to the “Lyctor” status, Gideon the Ninth separates itself from the rest of its genre firstly by setting the series not in the traditional fantasy-realm past, but instead in an interstellar futuristic expanse. Secondly, this novel’s reputation featuring “lesbian necromancers” proceeds itself and has that instant hook for booktok and social media recognition (though important to note, while having a wandering queer eye, this is not a romantasy novel). While technically being classified as fantasy and sci-fi, Gideon’s second half functions more as a whodunnit survival thriller meshed with dark academia elements and is very compelling when Muir gets it just right. Unfortunately, despite the ambitious plotting and creative ideas found throughout the story, Gideon the Ninth is held back by a few but very notable flaws with its approach to storytelling as well as its confusingly vague and messy world-building. Additionally, while the story does feature lesbian necromancers, takes place in space (hence the sci-fi genre), and has a childhood nemesis relationship, they’re rather weak elements within the greater scheme of things and may likely leave a lot of potential readers disappointed (particularly those looking for a queer fantasy/romance story).

Opening with style and action, right out of the gate Gideon the Ninth has a strong start. Gideon, an indentured servant to the Ninth House tasked with overseeing The Locked Tomb, is introduced to the reader right in the middle of her planned escape, only for her to be thwarted by Harrowhark Nonagesimus, the Reverend heir to the Ninth House and a powerful necromancer trained since birth. Starting with this initial confrontation and duel that perfectly represents the dual elements of its focal necromancer and cavalier pairings, Gideon the Ninth features strong action scenes full of various types of dark magic with flashy sword-based combat. Imaginative and unexpected, the action and magical combat chapters are a consistent highlight (the final battle consists of no less than 50 pages out of a 460-page book).

While the first few chapters are devoted to introducing the somber mood and cult-like behavior of the Ninth House, the main story starts when Gideon and Harrow are summoned to the expansive and labyrinth-like Canaan House located within the realm (or planet?) of the First House. With all houses two through nine being represented by a necromancer and cavalier pair each, the heirs to the Nine houses are tasked with the unknown and vague challenge at Canaan House to become the Emperor’s Lyctors, with no instructions and by any means necessary. The first half of the story focuses on introducing all the houses’ representatives, exploring Canaan House, and discovering odd experimental laboratories. However, once the story hits the half-way mark, the novel shifts into a dark academia-themed whodunnit murder mystery as characters are gradually offed one by one. The back half is where Muir’s creativity with various types of magic is at its best, with each different House having their own style of both necromancy and swordplay. The necromancy-themed challenges are also fascinating in concept, though it’s a bummer that so few of them are directly experienced by the reader via Gideon and Harrow, which in turn makes the reveal of their purpose less impactful than it could’ve been.

If any of the above sounds confusing, you’re not alone. While the overall direction of the story and plot are great, one of my biggest criticisms of Gideon the Ninth is that it does a consistently poor job at giving the reader context and details to help figure out what in the world is going on. While there is a glossary of terms and notes that breakdown each character at the back of the book, these sections have information that hinges on spoilers and therefore can’t effectively be used during an initial readthrough. Without that reference material, Gideon the Ninth‘s world, extensive terminology, and huge cast can be incredibly confusing for the reader to try and make sense of. Since the story is narrated from Gideon’s point of view, a good portion of the unknown can be attributed to her unorthodox upbringing and complete unfamiliarity with the various Houses and Necromancer/Cavalier roles. Even if that’s by purposeful design, it’s still a huge hurdle for many readers to overcome as nothing seems to make sense until nearly 250 pages in (that’s a long time to be confused). There’s little information about what the Ninth House even exists for, how it came to be, suddenly Gideon reveals they’re in space and a vertical shaft that was drilled into a planet(?), and there’s little explanation for how the magic and necromancy system works. Once the challenge at Canaan House begins, again there’s no information about what they’re doing there and almost 200 hundred pages are spent with Gideon basically wandering aimlessly killing time while Harrow is off doing something off-screen. While the lack of forthcoming information makes sense given the plot twists in the back half of the story, I can’t help but feel like something should’ve been done to either make this section more interesting or to add a stronger hook for the reader. After the initially exciting first duel between Gideon and Harrow, the story falls into a slump and drags, feeling both unnecessarily long and overly convoluted. I considered DNF-ing multiple times during this section due to the slow pacing and Gideon’s tiring character decisions (more on that shortly).

Fortunately, at the 50% mark the story finally picks up and the various plot threads start to form a picture (still a confusing picture but at least there’s some kind of direction). This investigative thriller section is easily Gideon’s strongest section and greatly improved my overall impression of the story. As the challenge progresses and other pairs start to disappear, the smaller cast and more focused narrative quickly gets stronger and far more manageable to follow, culminating in an explosive final battle. There are many creative plot twists in the back half of the story and while they are unexpected and creative, not all of them seem to fully land due to Gideon the Ninth‘s lack of strong world-building. Repeatedly it feels like plot twists are fully unexpected, not because the reader was misled or tricked, but because the reader is caught off guard by new magical mechanics thrown in randomly on the fly. Perhaps some of it may be attributed to my relative inexperience with necromancy-themed fantasy stories, however some of them left me scratching my head going “really now?”. They make sense circumstantially on paper, but a notable lack of foreshadowing or narrative clues prevents the twists from feeling satisfying and earned. The epilogue, while fascinating from a story-standpoint, brings up more questions than it answers and essentially requires the reader to keep reading to figure out what’s going on. What is the emperor and why is he considered almost like a god? What is going on in this interstellar world (that is barely shown in this novel outside of the Ninth’s House dark planet and the First House’s ocean-covered one) and what sort of conflict is the kingdom fighting against; the second and fourth houses are specifically catered towards combat but for what purpose? None of these questions are answered apart from the purpose of the challenge and how the heirs become Lyctors. I have almost no idea what’s going on with the series’ greater scope and nearly all the “why’s” remain unanswered. Worse, I almost don’t care due to the thin and all over the place world-building is.

Much like Gideon the Ninth‘s plot, Tamsyn Muir’s writing feels a bit inconsistent and unsure of what kind of story it wants to be. While generally well-written and having great action movements, there are unusually conflicting elements that point to this being a debut novel. The overall story is written much like a fantasy adventure but notably features many obscure vocabulary choices (reading this on an ereader with a built in dictionary was useful, and I have a fairly diverse readership vocabulary compared to the average casual reader). While they mostly work and achieve the desired effect of giving Gideon the Ninth the fantasy epic feel, they feel a bit out of place given that most of the story uses more straightforward and common word choices. There is noticeably no advanced vocabulary used during the battle scenes compared to the chapters directly before and after. The dialogue also ranges appropriately like the scholastic style like Palamedes of the Sixth House, more regal and official-like for those of the Second and Third Houses, etc. But then the novel breaks that immersion with Gideon saying modern slang like “That’s what she said” or light pop-culture references that don’t make sense with the story’s setting. This world also feels like it can’t decide if it wants to be historical or futuristic, with Gideon possessing “dirty magazines” that either should’ve been ancient and falling apart and are out of place given the futuristic setting (where is got them since she spent her entire life in the chaste Ninth House is a pretty big plot hole). There’s also a notable scene where Gideon doesn’t know what a sink is and hasn’t had the luxury to experience water in excess, yet she is able to swim and tread water near the end of the book. A casual reader may not notice or could overlook these details but for me, they stood out clearly and are a representative example of Muir’s unclear direction of Gideon the Ninth‘s world.

Outside of the plot and details, Gideon the Ninth‘s character work is also a bit of a mixed bag. Feisty, adrenaline-filled, and punch first ask questions later, Gideon’s character has a lot of flair, attitude, and is a good example of abrasive characterization (I recently read and reviewed Callie Hart’s Quicksilver whose main character Saeris is an example of how to do this poorly). On the representation front, Gideon is also clearly queer and despite this novel having zero romantic leans, has a wandering eye and thoughts that are refreshing to read. That said, Gideon’s affinity for banter and humor didn’t really work for me and often felt forced into the otherwise serious story (on top of the aforementioned out of place slang). Her narration in the first half of the novel also is quite repetitive, constantly being irritated at being lost (same here Gideon) or clashing with Harrow. Due to her rough and tough nature and her complete ignorance of all things relevant to the challenge, Gideon’s character logic can be quite tiring to read, and she frequently makes obviously poor decisions based on the circumstances. Part of this is meant to act as a foil to Harrow’s logical, detached, and cool ideology, but I can’t help but feel its heavy-handed. Her character’s lack of critical thinking or Muir’s writing style also leads her narration to be surface-level and lacking important details or understanding (over describing to a fault). I constantly felt like underwhelmed by whatever Gideon was feeling and experiencing (“just get on with the story, it’s obvious” was a constant sentiment), and annoyed by how clearly ignorant she was about everything. Part of that is by design but I felt like the narration was excessive and the story could’ve been far shorter if it trimmed Gideon’s thoughts.

Harrow on the other hand is a fascinating character and one who is difficult to read and understand, in a good way. Revealed in the second half of the book, her backstory not only provides important context for the Ninth House’s status but also great insight into her thoughts and feelings. While Gideon and Harrow make an interesting pair in the second half of the book (see the constant theme here), their hateful conflict and nemesis status before that also gets old and tiring quickly, mostly due to having no information about their childhood until near the end of the book. While the actual dialogue and banter is quite good, the conflict is also on-brand for the story, aka confusing. While the reader is given a clear idea of why Gideon hates Harrow, there’s zero clues for the animosity in the reverse direction. Additionally, the expected and foreshadowed reconciliation feels rushed (I felt like I missed something during the quick 180), and the placement of Harrow explaining her perspective is at an awkward place. I feel like it comes in too late to justify the intense bond and pain the two women have during the final battle which makes the emotional moments feel unnecessarily overdramatic, and the context given for Harrow’s childhood and the namesake “Locked Tomb” could’ve been far more impactful and useful earlier in the story. I frankly forgot about the Locked Tomb entirely up until an extended conversation between Gideon and the Eight House and Harrow’s reveals.

Outside of Gideon and Harrow, the rest of the characters largely feel slightly underdeveloped and the cast far too large to manage, at least initially. Muir makes the bizarre choice to refer to all the other house members by their House Number or their actual name interchangeably and throws all fifteen of them at the reader all at once (a common mistake of newer writers). While I understand some variation is purposeful to show the different relationships or mannerisms of the different characters to each other, it would’ve been so straightforward if the first few chapters would’ve referred to them by both name and number until the reader can remember who is who (ie. Palamedes Sextus of the Sixth House). Instead, Gideon calls him Palamedes, Harrow calls him Sextus, the rest of the houses use a mixture of both, some refer to him as “the Warden”, it’s a mess all while the reader is also expected to keep track of what each numbered House is known for. Again, this would be fine if the reader already is familiar with the character, but this happens all the time with brand new characters. The character directory provided at the beginning of the book helps a lot, but the reader should not have to use it so extensively to keep track of who is who if the story is written in an effective manner. There’s also a particular sparring chapter that throws five different houses at Gideon at the same time before the reader has any chance to figure out who is who. While there is a good variation of personalities and relationship dynamics between the different house representatives (Palamedes and Camilla of the Sixth House being my personal favorite and easily the most developed pair), most of them are quite basic archetypes and don’t have enough focus or interest to be developed further. Ordinarily that wouldn’t be a problem. However, with this novel utilizing the common survival challenge scenario where characters die during their training, the shallow character development prevents their deaths from having the emotional reaction likely intended. Gideon the Ninth also has unfortunate and obvious tendency of having Gideon heavily interact and get to know another House’s pairing only for them to quickly be killed soon after, a dead giveaway (couldn’t resist the pun) and easily preventable pitfall in whodunnit stories. I was willing to give the first one a free pass, but Muir kept doing it over and over with little variation.

Smoothly incorporating a murder mystery thriller genre into a dark academia-themed fantasy epic, Gideon the Ninth is full of great concepts and ideas that are refreshingly creative and impressive. The plot and the way all the seemingly loose clues come together at the end are highly ambitious and very respectable for a debut novel. Unfortunately, notable issues with the pacing, world-building, and reveal of narrative clues heavily affect the storytelling, I have a hard time confidently recommending Gideon the Ninth to all but the most patient and intelligent readers. But that’s also a double-edged sword as the type of reader able to fully comprehend and appreciate Gideon the Ninth‘s is also likely to notice the conflicting details and thin world-building. That being said, though I had a fairly negative reading experience with Gideon the Ninth possibly due to my apathy and annoyance with Gideon’s narration, it seems other readers that like Gideon feel otherwise so your mileage may vary. While I’m half-interested to see where the story goes, particularly since the next entry is focused on Harrow, I’ve heard that each of the three books so far have completely different tones and reviews of all three are certainly quite polarizing, some greatly favoring certain entries over others. Not quite sold on whether I’ll be continuing this one given their length but we shall see.